Chapter 7: Marketing Research

Results of research

by doing this we can create decisive actions and develop proper sales forecasts.

Marketing research

the process of defining a marketing problem and or opportunity and then systematically collecting and analyzing information to generate recommendations or actions. overall by doing research we reduce risk.

challenges to marketing research

say you are starting a brand new product, will people even want it? How will we coax out answers? Will actual behavior be like what they claimed?

Five Step approach

the typical market researcher needs to make decisions as concise as possible so a formalized process has been developed to collect data for decisions. it goes define the problem, develop research plan, collect info, develop findings and act.

Define the problem

this is the first step of marketing research. every different problem presents unique challenges so that is why this stage must be authentic. the two key objectives of this stage are set research objectives and brainstorm potential actions.

Set research objectives

the first step in defining a problem. they tend to be specific and measurable goals that we want to achieve and we need to ask questions to go about reaching them.

Identify possible marketing actions

the second step in defining a problem. effective marketing has measures of success or criteria used to evaluate proposed answers to problems. different outcomes need different actions.

Deciding if you need research

before you even start the process you should consider if different findings will actually stimulate different actions. If you aren’t going to do anything differently then there’s no point in finding stuff.

Develop research plan

this is the second step of the marketing research plan is is specifying constraints on research, identifies needed data, and determines how to get the data.

specify constraints

one of the aspects of part two. these are limits placed on a possible problem and it’s solutions. can be time, money, labor. say “you have one week with this budget.”

identify data

one of the aspects of part two. make sure what you are looking for is relevant. it should pertain to the immediate issue.

how to collect data

one of the aspects of part two. the two main parts to consider when deciding this are the datas concepts and methods.

concepts

needed to consider when deciding how to collect data. they are ideas about products and services. for instance a new product concept may be made to judge customer reactions to verbal descriptions.

methods

needed to consider when deciding how to collect data. they are the approaches to collect. do you ask, observe and how?

specific types of methods

Sampling: select groups, ask questions, treat as generalizable.
2) statistical inference: this is the process of actually generalizing findings to the larger groups.

Collecting data

the third step of the marketing research. this stuff is needed to make rational decisions and could be rather limited or huge in scope.

Data

this is the facts, figures, numbers related to the problem and can be either secondary or primary.

secondary data

this is data that is already in existence and was collected at a previous time. can be either external or internal such as financials within the company or reports from the census.

primary data

newly created data which can be gathered by observation, questionnaires, or other sources.

Secondary internal data

this type of data comes mostly from internal records. easy to find and can be divided into marketing inputs and outcomes

marketing inputs

part of secondary internal data. data related to efforts of marketing expended to sales. sales, ads, expenditures. call reports are number of sales per daily calls. who visited and what was discussed.

marketing outcomes

these are part of secondary internal data. results of marketing efforts. like billing records on shipments from accounting to sales. customer communications are important to.

secondary external data

these are data types that come from published sources outside of the organization. examples could be the census which gives a good idea of demographics and trends or the economic census which gives numbers produced by product, geography, industry, NAICS code.

syndicated panel

data that has come from paid households recording purchases. a types of secondary external data.

this type of data in general is time efficient, low cost to collect and often has good detail but may be out of date, may not be specific enough and the definitions of industries may not be perfectly matched.

observational data

these are facts, figures, numbers that you obtain from watching and monitoring either mechanically or in person how people actually behave. they are super flexible and in-depth but costly and possible unrepresentative. answers what they do not why they do it.

mechanical collection

think the Nielsen TV ratings. people meters. a machine records how you do things. kinda like a purchases pedometer.

personal methods

the second way to obtain observational data and can include secret shoppers, ethnographic, interviews ect.

mystery shopper

secret shopper tests quality. unique information

ethnographic research

trained observers seek to learn the subtle behavioral and emotional reactions in “natural use environment.”

neuromarketing

a new field where you try and discover the deep unconscious reactions to stimuli.

Asking people

this is the second main form of primary data and can either be idea generation methods or idea evaluation methods.

questionnaire data

this type of data is different for each type of asking people method but is essentially just the info gained by asking about attitudes, intentions, awareness, behaviors.

Idea generation methods

this is one of the methods of asking people. the main categories include individual interviews, focus groups, in-depth interviews, fuzzy front end and trend hunting.

individual interviews

one on one. probing questions but the most expensive

depth interviews

lengthy, free-flowing questions to probe for underlying ideas and attitudes or feeling.

focus groups

informal information collection. idea is they will be more open to sharing around others open to sharing. six to ten past, present, potential consumers where a moderator asks opinions.

fuzzy front end

used when finding the next big thing. tries to identify trends early.

trend hunting

emerging shift in social behavior`

Evaluation Methods

the second method type for asking people. tries to ask questions to see how an idea is fairing. lots of surveys, interviews, polls, ect. The exact type of collection used is based on cost and data turnover compared to data relevance and quality.

types of surveys

Personal: expensive
Mail: cheap but biases as outliers answer.
Telephone: they could hange up.
Online: low cost, super fast but crazy broad. often may be treated as spam and are blocked.

open-ended questions

questions on surveys that allow expression in own terms and is essential as it is truly the voice of the customer.

closed or fixed end questions

pre-determined choices are used for surveys. dictomonius is only one or two answers.

scale

used when the closed questions have three or more choices

needs of questions

it is important to remember that the wording of these has to be interpreted the same way.

Other sources of primary data

these are increasing in popularity to find primary data and include social media, panels/experiments, informational technology and data mining.

social media

Facebook, Twitter ect. more directly connects marketers and consumers, increase of speed and volume of info. new metrics must be used such as conversational velocity, share of voice and sentiment.

panels and experiments

Panel: Helps us see changes in behaviors over time. They are samples of consumers or stores where we get stats. Iffy as needs to continually recruit more to replace drop-outs.

Experiments: manipulate under tightly controlled conditions to see how changes in the independent variable affect the dependent variable. be sure you can pick out the uncontrollable external forces.

information technology

these are typically operating computer networks that store and process data. They help process shear volume, they collect data from both external and internal sources and store and organize it into databases. then computers query the data with questions going through stat models to finally represent it in graphs.

data mining

extraction of hidden information from large bases to find statistical links between purchasing patterns and marketing actions. see how people buy things together perhaps.

Pros and cons of primary data

while they are incredibly more flexible and specific they are much more costly and not time practical.

Develop findings

this is the fourth step of marketing research and is composed of analyzing the data, presenting findings.

analyze the data

basically using data to answer relevant questions.

present findings

when you do this in step four the main idea is that it needs to be clear, concise and understandable from the most basic perspective. often uses dashboards and graphs. metrics should inform and build on one another.

take action

the final stage in the marketing research process and is acting on the recommendations created from the data. you make the recommendations, implement action and evaluate.

evaluate the decision

the decision itself: monitor the marketplace to see if we need further action, new action, repeat action.

the process of decision making: was the research effective, flawed, how do we improve it.

sales forecasting

total sales of a product expected over a period of time under specific environmental conditions and own market efforts. Can be decided by the judgments of decision makers, surveys of knowledgeable groups or statistical methods.

judgement of decision maker

the vast majority of forecasting comes from this source. and is basically them using data they have at hand to guesstimate.

direct forecast

like how much do I need from the ATM? estimate value without intervening steps.

lost-horse forecast

putting yourself in their shoes. start at last known value of item to be forecast, list influencing factors, asses if they impact it negatively or positively and then final forecast.

survey groups

ask people who are likely to know about sales such as prospective buyers or salespeople

survey of buyer intentions

will you buy this during so and so. effective for organizational buyers where there are less buyers in general.

sales force survey forecast

ask salesman who are contact with the consumers. often unrealistically painted picture.

statistical methods

think trend extrapolation to extend an observed pattern into the future. it assumes though that trends and relations hold firm.